Old Money
10.24.2008 New Partisan is proud to present Lincoln MacVeagh’s now complete serial novel, Old Money, a dark satire in the manner of Evelyn Waugh and Dawn Powell:
“Look Dante, the question I’m getting at is this: Do you love commercial real estate? I don’t think you do.”
“Does anyone love commercial real estate?” asked Dante.
“I should hope so.”
“Do you love it?”
Mr. Bullard answered carefully. “I like it a lot.”
“Then you don’t love it?”
“No, but I care about it. I care deeply about it.”
Mr. Bullard folded his arms across his chest as if daring Dante to disbelieve him. Dante was genuinely puzzled. He hadn’t anticipated this discussion and he stared at Mr. Bullard trying to imagine what it meant to care deeply about commercial real estate.
There was an embarrassing silence before Dante realized where the conversation was headed:
“I’m being stupid, aren’t I?”
The runway at St. Dymphna is a circle, the preferred orbit of angels, but not well-suited to sublunar aircraft. Our stewardess assures us, however, that air traffic controllers on the island of St. Dymphna are legendary geometers, and fully ordained priests. Very few planes fall prey to centrifugal disaster. And, miraculously, ours is not one of them.
I took one long inspiration of the Egyptian cigarette. The grey-green smoke arose in a small puffy column that spread and broadened, that seemed to fill the room. I could see the maple leaves dimly, as if they were veiled in a shimmer of moonlight. A subtle, disturbing current passed through my whole body and went to my head like the fumes of disturbing wine. I took another deep inhalation of the cigarette.